The biggest threat at that time was thought to be rockets. The Soviets loved rockets, and seemed to develop their use more extensively than the U.S....and the Norks had lots and lots of rockets.
The thing with rockets, is one multiple rocket launcher can launch close to a dozen rockets in a matter of seconds, much faster than artillery.
And, I could be wrong, but I don't think counter-battery radar would be very effective against rockets, since they rely on the basic equations of motion for an object only subject to an initial force and gravity - don't know how they could really back-calculate the launching point of a fired rocket.
One other thing - a lot of the talk about counter-battery fire is pointless. Its not like we have artillery pieces in position and ready for a fire mission. The situation is usually that we have soldiers sleeping in barracks, with their vehicles tarped in the motor pool. We would practice alerts...and even without artillery and rockets raining down on us, it usually took an hour to get everything out of the motor pool.
One good thing Donald Rumsfeld did is reduce our force in Korea - because that force is essentially a target.
Anyway, if the Norks ever decided to launch a first strike, my prediction would be:
1. Soldiers in the actual DMZ are well within range of just about any artillery there is, so they would be devastated with artillery, rockets, and chemical weapons. Yes, 25% might fail, but the amount of ordinance would be huge.
2. Over the years, weapons have developed a range greater than that of the DMZ - these would be used to hit barracks and motor pools containing US artillery and tanks. Being further away, and requiring better aim, this would be scattershot, with a few barracks hit, most motor pools with at least a few shells landing...and the civilian areas that have developed around these encampments would be a mess, having also taken a beating from poorly aimed artillery and rockets.
3. For shock effect, the Norks would use their longest range weapons on Seoul. Damage would be done, but it would not be devastating.
4. The US response would include trying to get heavy equipment, including artillery, out of the motor pools and into pre-planned positions. This will be difficult, as the roads would immediately clogged with civilians fleeing south. Frankly, our planned route to our positions included driving through/over tin buildings, instead of trying the roads.
5. The most immediate and deadly US response would be by air. The carrier group is a nice show of force, but there are ground based A-10s and F-16s, with pilots on stand-bye. They would take to the air and hit a series of pre-planned targets - destroying much of the Nork's artillery, among other things. And that's it - the Norks would get one devastating volley. And the end result would be a lot of their own hardware in flames, and the US with a legitimate reason to start working on 'regime change', and possible re-unification. This is why the Norks, unless this guy is a raving lunatic in every way, would never launch a full scale attack.
Why are we not factoring in half a dozen low yield nukes lobbed into Seoal and Japan? It would absolutely devastate those highly populated countries. Kim would do that if he felt cornered, I’m sure. We are dealing with a nuclear power here, folks.
“Its not like we have artillery pieces in position and ready for a fire mission. The situation is usually that we have soldiers sleeping in barracks, with their vehicles tarped in the motor pool.”
You think that if the US launches a first strike on the DPRK, that US soldiers in ROK will just be sitting around sleeping?
There’s lots of different attack scenarios, and I don’t know which one would be pursued. My suspicion is that the ROK won’t allow attacks from their territory, in order to reduce the odds that the DPRK would retaliate. If that’s the case however, if the DPRK does shell - immediately or later - then the US and ROK will return fire across the DMZ, with air support. If the DPRK goes into full invasion mode, the US and ROK will immediately counter, and it’ll lead to the taking of Pyongyang.
This is why the Norks, unless this guy is a raving lunatic in every way, would never launch a full scale attack.
Retired Air Force here.
Assuming the NORK artillery is firing because they are retaliating over our first strike, we would be derelict in our duty to not get our people up and out in the field before the first smart weapon hits Kim’s palace.
I wonder what such OPSEC, or more specifically lack of it, would alert the NORKs? Would they preempt our first strike with their own strike?
Also, I’m not sure we can do THAT much damage from the air in a short enough time to take out Kim’s assets BEFORE he kills lots of South Koreans. We’d need a fairly complex campaign to work them over good similar to Desert Storm.
WE do not use ground forces as cannon fodder. Taking the NORK dug in positions with ground troops would be like Mount Surabachi on Iwo. It has to be a pounding for a while with everything we got. I heard some of those tunnels are up to 900 feet underground. What a mess!
Still, we CANNOT allow him to have solid fuel ICBMs with nuke warheads. We just can’t.